ngoni tribe culture pdf
Patrilineal succession and inheritance, for example, introduced by the Ngoni, was bound up with the relations of father to son, the acquiring and distribution of cattle, the worship of clan and family ancestors. To-day when they discuss the advent of the Europeans and the consequent' spoiling ' of their country, they recall the days when extensive tribute was paid to their Paramount Chief, chiefs were free to choose good sites for their very big villages, the outlying areas were ruled by indunas and lesser chiefs. The subject races of the Ngoni who had hitherto either been conquered or submitted volun- tarily to the Ngoni had now an ally who was stronger than their former masters. These were Ngoni, and they and their fellow Ngoni in other areas. They involve also an explanation of what is meant by the expression 'a distinctive Ngoni culture', or 'distinctive Ngoni institutions '. In addition to recitals of tradition by 'historians ' there are many other reminders of the Ngoni past which are constantly before the people. Another section is in Portuguese East Africa on the South-West border of Nyasaland. Yet even here they find a cause for pride. Their historical origin and military achievements form also the charter for their former position as rulers of the country which they held before the advent of the Europeans. The legal right to this concession was based on the British South Africa Company's treaties with 'dispossessed chiefs '. The seeming welter of tribes is in reality an ordered relationship. Their standards of hospitality, of courtesy, and of mutual assistance they believe to be much superior to the Europeans. With an estimated 10-11 million people living mainly in the KwaZulu-Natal province – and additional small numbers in Zimbabwe, Zambia and Mozambique-, the Zulu are the largest South African ethnic group. But all Ngoni people can know that.'2. It is not possible in this article to do justice to all these aspects of an intricate problem. In Gomani's country, on the other hand, where taxes are collected through the chiefs and headmen, though the men groan at having to find the money, they do not attempt to evade it, first because it would be useless, and secondly because they acknowledge the right of the chiefs to collect dues from them. If their political aspirations were appreciated and their racial pride acknowledged, they could make a successful synthesis between Ngoni institutions and modern administration with its concomitants of modern education and modern economic methods. He also refused Sir Harry Johnston's emissary who met Weise at Mpezeni's kraal with a view to getting Mpezeni to make a treaty direct with the British Crown. To-day children of local clans are teased by children of Ngoni clans and called ' Chewa' if they have not had their ears pierced, and they beg their mothers to take them to the ' doctor' to be ' made Ngoni. Places Songimvelo Game Reserve, an Early Archaeological Site; General Galleries. ISBN 978-90-04-31996-7. There was spread of Ngoni customs and culture. With their invincibility gone, the regiments broke up and the Ngoni military prestige was at an end. I think the main reason the Ngoni lost their language was because of their process of assimilating conquered people who ended up being in majority. This article is about the historical origins of the Ngoni found predominantly in Mzimba (Jele [1]) and those headquartered in Ntcheu (Maseko).It is not about the battles that the Ngoni fought, nor is it about the succession battles that each group has had to overcome. He says the language is spoken internationally in countries like South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Swaziland; as such, Ngoni has a language. One Ngoni Paramount has prohibited any but Ngoni dances to be danced in his country. Should we say then that Ngoni is a culture without a language? It was illustrated in the instance of the Nyasaland men in Johannesburg, who all claimed to be Ngoni because they had discovered at once that the name commanded respect among the mixture of tribes to be found on the mines. I shall show how the continued preservation of their distinctive institutions, together with their strong historical sense, gave them a dominant position in the country, which was enforced through their military and political supremacy. what is meant by the expression 'a distinctive Ngoni culture', or 'distinctive Ngoni institutions '. We have also to recognize that the wider connotation of the word is in constant use to-day, and it will be apparent in the course of this article that those who like to be thought Ngoni but have no real claim to the name, find ways in which to identify themselves with the real Ngoni, and to impress upon outsiders that they share the distinction of that name. Are there still cultural realities in Ngoni society which should be preserved, and can the Ngoni political structure be galvanized into new life through the medium of Indirect Rule? Les Ngoni sont des populations de langue bantoue d'Afrique australe faisant partie du groupe Nguni, surtout présent dans le centre du Malawi, de l'autre côté de la frontière au Mozambique et en Tanzanie, également en Zambie. They admit reluctantly one or two minor adaptations, and proceed immediately to tell the major changes which they forced on the Chewa and others living under their rule. 25.Head-ring, the sign of a warrior ready to marry. It is convenient for a chief to be able to exchange a few remarks with a relative or an im- portant visitor in a language which the onlookers cannot follow, and I have also heard a chief do the same with one of his indunas during a case in court. At the same time many of them earnestly wish for a solution of the present tension, but towards such a solution there is no easy short cut. trailer
Other neighbouring peoples have vague traditions of wandering from north to south, or west to east, but the Ngoni know exactly where they came from and by what route. With the prefix, e, a, na (according to the area) the clan name is used as a respectful form of address, and always when thanking for a gift or favour. The Ngoni Tribe of Malawi. I found men on the Northern Rhodesian Copper Belt and in Johannesburg assert emphatically that they were Ngoni because they were the people of. They cannot know about the Ngoni '. 0000002654 00000 n
2. It is never- theless recognized that the aristocrats, through their kinship links with the past, have the best knowledge; the rest listen and defer to them. If I said to any older man of good standing, that is of a true Ngoni clan, 'Tell me about the Ngoni', he invariably began with the traditions of the south and their trek north. It gives us meaning, a way of leading our lives. In Mpezeni's and Gomani's countries, where they were conquered by force of arms, they knew they had to yield as they had made others yield in their day. You are my friend."' It also involved making a number of village plans, showing the alignment of houses on the village site, the names and clans of the inhabitants and their mutual relations in terms of kinship groups and village organization.' It proved also to be a pass-word to their confidence, for when- ever I mentioned chamtendere to a village headman, he and his notables nudged each other, and laughed and said,' She can know about us '. In their own eyes, their prestige was still due to their southern origin, their success in creating the Ngoni state in an alien milieu, and those distinctive institutions which they had retained. They gained a foothold and did some prospecting, and then tried to impose a hut tax, and to exercise administrative powers through their own uniformed police of the Tonga tribe from Lake Nyasa-a tribe despised by the Ngoni. In each area the Paramount Chief arranged that' historians ', that is, old men accredited by him as having correct information, should come to dictate Ngoni history to me. As a study in culture contact where eye-witnesses, both white and black, are still available as informants, it is most illuminating to compare the effects of white contact in Mpezeni's and Mwambera's countries. Contact Us Donate to … The real Ngoni do not admit to borrowing much. The missionaries brought a new religion, western education, and western medicine. And in each area the versions as recited convince the people that their inkosi is supreme. To Mwambera's country it was Dr. Laws. Janice Hocker Rushing (1983) has argued, for example, that an enduring myth in U.S. culture, as seen in films, is the rugged individualist cowboy of the American West. 543 0 obj<>
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There are presently over 1.5 million Chewa throughout Malawi and Zambia, however the Chewa are not considered people of Malawi or Zambia; instead they are people from the Nyanja group of Bantu. The Ngoni were Bantu-Nguni speaking people of … They are all hopelessly mixed with other tribes. Nor was the defeat in war their final humiliation. Under British South Africa Company till 1924. Settlers were arriving to acquire land and demand labour. In effect, all those whose ancestors were absorbed before the final break up of the main Ngoni group are recognized as having some claim to the name Ngoni. For matters relating to history are no antiquarian interest to the Ngoni. Nor does the adoption of some measure of European ways reconcile them to a different attitude. Courts were held with scrupulous regard for order and justice. The anthropologist who is interested in culture contact must go further and indicate the nature of the double contact caused first by the intermingling of the Ngoni with other tribes, and then by the advent of the Europeans. It was an occasion on which economics, religion, politics, social life and recreation were brought together in a dramatic form in the part played by the Paramount Chief vis-a-vis his people. Therein lies the chief difference to-day between the attitude of the Ngoni to the Europeans and that of the Chewa, for example. The detailed knowledge of Ngoni history is regarded as the province of a specialist. They brought with them a pattern of society from the south; they modified' it during their forty odd years of wandering and warfare; and they moulded it finally when they settled in their present areas. I have seen Chewa men and women huddle together during these war dances, and mutter, ' Too many Ngoni are here ', as if they were still in the days of fighting and raids, while the Ngoni warriors swagger about, swishing their kilts of skins and brandishing their shields and spears with every appearance of reality. This is illustrated very well in the girls' initiation ceremonies, which differ very much in Ngoni and Chewa society. The true Ngoni clans are those most highly honoured, the real aristocrats, and a little experience teaches the field worker to recognize their bearing as they walk about among the rest. Important village names. 0000000596 00000 n
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A disputed succession followed and the Ngoni split up under two rival Paramounts, Mpezeni and Mwambera. Tumbuka, a people who live on the lightly wooded plateau between the northwestern shore of Lake Nyasa (Lake Malaŵi) and the Luangwa River valley of eastern Zambia. They still resent white intrusion and its results, economic, administrative, and missionary. Their dispersal was due to the rise of the Zulu empire early in the 19th century, during which many refugee bands moved away from Zululand. Here I use the English word ' clan' to express the unilateral group according to kinship descent. ' From the doorway of my hut I saw people coming all day long to the Paramount Chief, behaving towards him with profound respect, bringing him presents, working for him. This, to them, is a cause for feeling ashamed. It is not about the Ngoni language or culture, although elements as they impact on this article may be touched upon. Ethnonymie. Nguni people are a group of closely related Bantu ethnic groups that reside in Southern Africa.They predominantly live in South Africa.Swazi people live in both South Africa and Eswatini, while Ndebele people live in both South Africa and Zimbabwe.. To pay taxes, that is our war to-day ', and some- thing of the old martial spirit is evident in the young men who success- fully evade the tax collectors, where the tax is collected directly by the Government, as in Mpezeni's country. There were intermarriages between the Ngoni and Nyamwezi,whichsubsequentlyled to improved relationships between the invaders and indigenous peoples, and an increase in population. It is hardly correct, therefore, to speak of the Ngoni as a tribe, for from Natal to Tanganyika men of many 'tribes' joined, or were captured and forcibly assimilated by, the original nucleus of Zulu and Swazi warriors, to be welded by their political and military organization into an effective group. Though the article mentions present day situations, these are for the sake of comparison and context. When the British punitive force camped outside Mpezeni's kraal, the Ngoni war induna sent to ask if they were ready to fight. We consequently declined to acknowledge him as ruling chief.'. But we wanted also to see if the English would conquer the Germans as they conquered us.' 0000001362 00000 n
Malinowski. Having once been used, however, it appeared frequently in conversa- tions with me, and proved a useful starting-point for accounts of the organization of their own state and the effects on it of the European advent. ' The so-called Chewa tribe, for example, rarely, if ever, use the word Chewa, but refer to themselves as Ntumba, Maravi, etc. So deeply is this tradition of friendship between Mpezeni and Weise, with its consequences of betrayal and disaster, embedded in the Ngoni thinking, that when I stayed in the Paramount Chief's village and exchanged presents with him, many old people shook their heads and warned the young people, 'The Azungu war will come again. The answer to that question has two desiderata. Tauris, 2015, 368 pages. All around them were small chieftains owning a few villages with no integration in any large political unit.2 The Ngoni state was focussed in the inkosi, the Paramount Chief, who was at once the 'owner '3 of the land, the 'head '3 of the state, and the 'father '3 of his people. 27.In the Report of Justice Maughan on the North Charterland Inquiry he says, 'It was a remarkably well-managed little war and the Ngoni accepted their defeat in good spirit like other Bantu races '. His children formed a special group in the village, easily recognizable by their bearing and their manners. They still think they are due a unique position among the tribes, and for this reason they dwell continually on the glories of chamtendere. Try out the HTML to PDF API pdfcrowd.com prepared by: shamir suleman website : itessentials.blogspot.com +255-656-848274 (text) copy right 2016 tanzania education blog designed for tanzania secondary students file database: google FTP protocol for more files click here download THE NGONI MIGRATIONS Who were the Ngoni? Using chieftainship in the sense of the Ngoni inkosi whose office and powers were very different from those of the surrounding petty chiefs. xref
of the total inhabitants, the average being about 45 per cent. I avoid using vernacular terms in this article because usually the Ngoni, Chewa, Nsenga, and Tumbuka terms are all different. The present divisions of the Ngoni are due partly to European frontiers, partly to the fact that more than one party of them came up from the south, and partly to divisions among the Ngoni during the period of settlement. Gradually it became evident that the Ngoni, being very conscious themselves of their distinctive cultural identity, and of their positive achievements in setting up the Ngoni state, expect other people to recognize this too. 9. This is one of the most interesting festivals that one can’t afford to miss if willing to learn more about the culture of the Ngoni of Mzimba. These armies had hitherto been the chief sanction for Ngoni supremacy. 0000004015 00000 n
Meantime the British South Africa Company obtained a new charter to extend its field north of the Zambezi, and sent an emissary to Mpezeni's kraal to make a treaty with him. He began to take money for our huts. There the chief will take pains to point out that there are no slaves to-day, and that no Ngoni must 'spoil the country' by insulting the people of the Paramount. In spite of certain minor differences there was then a form of society and of political organization which was the same in all three areas, and they all possessed the same language, traditions, and aristo- cratic hierarchy. The Ngoni are not children. When I arrived in Chief Gomani's country, after having stayed in the other two Ngoni areas, the chiefs and leading men whom he called to see me asked at once, 'What did the other Ngoni do to show you they were Ngoni? Our cattle were taken by the Europeans; Mwambera's were not. You do not know about Elangeni being the village of Hlachwayo ? Policy, however, was different in those days, and strong chiefs were crushed. 'No one ever conquered us until the Azungu came, and no one will conquer us again until they first conquer the Azungu.' In old days Ngoni villages were very much larger than to-day. 'All those in the country of Mpezeni are Ngoni. 30. However, when I promised the Paramount Chief that no one in the locality should see the village plans, he sent out word that I was to be given all the information I needed, and no one need fear the consequences. They had to readjust themselves to new relations with other tribes, and at the same time to the Europeans. 3.For the purposes of this article these are the only groups which will be considered. The Europeans were the overlords of all the tribes, not the Ngoni. The Ngoni trace their origins to the Nguni and Zulu people of kwaZulu-Natal in South Africa. However I must admit the no single answer to your question though i believe assimilation played a major part especially since language is passed from mother to child and if you end up with alot of assimilated wives your language is bound to lose out. At the same time the direction of political affairs and the relations between the different tribes was assumed by a superior power. The casual European observer in the country sees only the Paramount Chief and his subordinate chiefs ruling over a welter of tribes with a confusing mixture of social behaviour. Sometimes they relate factual history which is verifiable and accurate. While industrialization and modernisation has its own significance, we also have to realize that the tribal culture … The field worker can observe how much Ngoni ' national feeling ' was bound up with memories of war days, when to-day they put on their war dress and dance war dances at a chief's village. Author(s): Patrick M. Redmond, 1975. The Ngoni are found to-day scattered over four East African territories. It is from this angle that the Ngoni in Mpezeni's country regard the 'war' between them and the British in 1898. Below are some izithakazelo (Kinship group praises) for some nguni or ngoni clans collected from the web. To the surrounding people, to the Chewa and other tribes, Ngoni prestige depended partly on the very effective justice meted out in the courts,I and also on the unquestioning allegiance of all subordinate authorities to the Paramount Chief. I shall only mention here some ways and occasions through which tradition and old Ngoni institutions are brought before the people. I use the word ' tribe ' here to express these distinctive groups, but it is impossible to avoid some ambi- guity without long linguistic digressions. Contribute. When asked, 'What is the meaning of a clan ?' In one area part of it has been written in the vernacular and is used as a school history book.' The prayers for rain invoke the names of great chiefs in old days, but are now only a memory as they are no longer used in ceremonies-at least in none that I have found so far. People in Western cultures hold a dominant independent self-construal, which “involves a conception of the self as an autonomous, independent person” (Markus & Kitayama, 1991, p. 226). The Ngoni dislike very much being asked point blank what cultural adjustments they made due to Chewa and other local customs. Their interpretation of their history, therefore, reflected in the established legends and tradition, influences profoundly their thinking about themselves, about their neighbours, and about the Europeans. The version of a narrative at one time was inter- preted or moulded to serve a purpose. 0
The complexities of this situation involve the analysing of the ethnic elements included in this term 'Ngoni' and the determining of the sense in which it is to be used. 3. Another powerful tribe, the Lozi, dominated western Zambia and also originated from the Congo in the late seventeenth century. Have they a separate identity as a people, marked by distinctive social and political institutions ?' A frequent topic of discussion in villages is the differences between the administration of N. Rhodesia and of Nyasaland, as well as the policy and attitudes of the different missions. The main purpose of the tradition was to show that there cannot be more than one rightful inkosi of the Ngoni. When pressed to be more specific about this 'troubling' by the Azungu they spoke of taxes, of the ban upon raiding and warfare, of young men being called away to work, of their land being taken for European farms. To the persistence of that conflict is due the strength of Ngoni 'national feeling', which has directed the selective process by which some of their political, legal, and social institutions have survived the results of culture contact. Here is a society which is a compound of ethnic units, subdivided into clans according to kinship, stratified into ranks, held together by a ruling aristocracy and a strong cen- tralized political organization. PDF | The interpretation of the Ngoni of Exodus 14:21-31 makes a comparison with the Israelites possible. 0000001069 00000 n
When questioned, they acknowledged their local origin as Nsenga or Chewa by kinship and clan, but claimed the name Ngoni in terms of their political allegiance. The latter is the cause of his quarrel with Colonel Warton on the matter of a British flag and taxation.' Ngoni political ascendancy and their control of economic organization was also at an end. He is considered to be God’s son. After the advent of the Europeans, however, it becomes impossible to generalize, as both the manner and the results of white penetration varied so much in the three areas. 2.It is said that it is useless to bribe Ngoni chiefs and councillors. Tradition supports rank, by recognizing the historical im- portance of certain clans; and rank preserves tradition because intimate knowledge is the proud monopoly of certain families. When pressed to explain the nature of this ' bad 'influence, they say,' The children are learning only the customs of the women. The values inherent in certain Ngoni institu- tions have spread beyond their own areas, for one Chewa Paramount Chief told me he had for long admired the Ngoni system of filial succession and inheritance, and was now trying, in the teeth of much opposition, to introduce it into his country. When they entered their present areas the Ngoni were very inferior in numbers to the indigenous people. Yet at all times the emphasis in, and interpretation of, tradition, has a definite purpose, and it is possible to see how a standardized form of a narrative has come to be accepted and believed in. Art and Culture; Biographies; Africa; Classroom; Places; Timelines; Archives; Publications; go. IN MEMORY OF WILLIAM KOYI, XHOSA MISSIONARY TO NOR... MPONDA MISSION DIARY, 1889-1891: MASEKO NGONI DEFE... Fetish worship among the Ngoni of Ntcheu and other... A JOURNEY FROM BLANTYRE TO ANGONI-LAND AND BACK IN... NAMUYINE NIKUMBWIKI SANA KUNYANJA KWA NAZALIWI.. The Ngoni are well known for their skill in house- building, yet they prefer their own of poles and mud, and are slow to take to brick houses. It was also the occasion on which he made known any new laws before the assembled leaders of his country. With fuller knowledge and co-operation on both sides the strength of Ngoni national sentiment might be used to make a success of the policy of Indirect Rule. Village descent. He is very powerful and is the only avowedly recalcitrant chief in all British Central Africa. 3 As one of these processes, the piercing of the ear-lobes became the 'tribal mark' of the Ngoni as various forms of tattooing were of other tribes. Once they were settled, however, and married local women, those women went visiting to their own homes and took their children with them, and gradually a pronounced alien element and another language penetrated into Ngoni society. And it is not only the aristocrats who take part in such conversations. In northern ngoniland ngoni continued to be the main spoken language until early 1900s when it died down. 0000003654 00000 n
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Each group, tribe, or clan, has its recognized place vis-a-vis other groups. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill. The Chewa Tribe is an African culture that has existed since the beginning of the first millennium, A.D. Their local language is called Chichewa, Malawi national language. An idiomatic use which has the force of a double negative 'No one cannot know it '. 7.This word 'respect' is constantly in use among the Ngoni. His cruelty was shown when he lost his mother, and put people under severe signs of mourning. After one such taking down of history in the Paramount's village, I went to stay in the village of one of these ' historians ', a very much respected mulumuzana and one of the ' best families '. It is interesting to see how this language test brings out the social distinctions based on family and rank, and produces generally an inferiority reaction among the non-Ngoni. The headman of a village on your first visit will always give you the genealogy of his village, how it split off from A, which split off from B, which was the chigawa under induna X of the big village of chief Y. Reciting these village genealogies generally leads to some recalling of the past, and the village notables, the ama- doda, gather round to corroborate or correct the headman's recital. Herd boys will point out a river and say,' That is where Mtwalo built when he came from Choma ', or' That hill is where Singu hid in the Azungu war '. Produced 31 March 2011. Their language is almost identical with old Zulu. 1.1 Name of society, language, and language family: In Tanzania, Mozambique, and Zambia, Ngoni, Bantu language family 1.2 ISO code (3 letter code from ethnologue.com): NGO 1.3 Location (latitude/longitude): South central, Ruvuma region, south of Songea. I have some fifteen long texts' of Ngoni history, most of which begin with the stories of Dingiswayo and Zwidi, leading on to the rise of Chaka and the Ngoni exodus from the south. The spread of American corporations abroad has various consequences on local cultures, some very visible, and others more subtle. The rest, that is the clans found in the areas where the Ngoni finally settled are, or rather were, regarded as conquered or slave people. Mpezeni refused. The earlier part of the period was one of exploring and of conquest. 0000002180 00000 n
Hence I ought to have it written down fully and correctly. 'Only in war the Azungu knew better ', and that to the Ngoni was the acid test. They often referred to these differences as soon as they knew I was going from one Ngoni area to another, and it is evident that they are well aware that they met with different kinds of white contact. In 1895 the North Charterland Company was formed, distinct from and yet allied with the British South Africa Company,' with mining and trading rights over io,ooo square miles, most of which lay in Mpezeni's territory. From the beginning of my stay among the Ngoni the chiefs and leading men impressed on me the importance of knowing about their past. 545 0 obj<>stream
Chamtendere, then, was the period of Ngoni supremacy, when they established by force of arms their right to rule over the country and its indigenous inhabitants. 6.See Bantu Studies, Sept. 1934, for classification of the South African languages. The Ngoni in Mpezeni's country, when speaking of this time, call it chamtendere (the time of peace). It is in fact one of the distinguishing marks between the true Ngoni and the rest. The plan of work which I adopted at the beginning had as its aim the establishing of certain essential data-namely, to determine the principles of local or territorial settlement in relation to the political organization and the ethnic constitution of the area. After we settled here, indunas were made from the Makalanga, Nsenga, and Sukuma clans'. We have seen, however, that there is a much wider sense in which the term Ngoni is used-that is, by all who live under the rule of the Paramount Chief. When speaking of these 'good old days' the Ngoni always refer to the Inqwala, for it was to them symbolic of the greatness of their Inkosi, and of how 'they lived well' before the Azungu came as despoilers. Koyi as believing that the Ngoni were 'related to the Abambo - a tribe of Fingoes (Mfengu) far south'.9 This theory is not altogether impossible, for, as the Oxford History of South Africa points out One outstanding fact is the enormous area over which Nguni people dispersed within thirty-five years. There was therefore less actual resistance to culture fusion, though the dislike of adopting alien customs persisted. Lane Poole, "The Date of the Crossing of the Zambezi by the Ngoni" Journal of the African Society, 29, 1929-30, pp.290-2; also Marwick, M.G., (1963). A fundamental element of culture is the issue of religious belief and its symbolic expression.